Two things happened at the same time. North’s hand fell on the door, pushing hard enough to open it a quarter-inch, and blue-white light from the alley dazzled him. At the same time, something heavy whistled through the air and connected with the back of his head. And then the blue-white dazzle of the alley light swallowed everything, and North felt himself falling.

Chapter 31

The Lucky’s front doors weren’t locked, and Shaw felt a trickle of fear. He told himself it was just the cold. The cycling shorts didn’t really help—shrinkage was very real, and Shaw made a note to be somewhere warm, very warm, when he rubbed this particular victory in North’s face—and Shaw tugged on the lolcat sweater. He was just cold. That was all. Last night, they probably forgot to lock up the front. Or the cleaners were here. Or some queens choreographing their next routine. Or maybe even a kid trying to get off the street for a few hours.

When Shaw stepped inside the lobby, where the aroma of popcorn and spilled beer lingered, Shaw heard something. He wasn’t sure what it was—a low whump, barely anything, really—but it came from the theater, and it sent a chain reaction through the ancient, instinctive part of his brain. That sound meant danger, and his body reacted: adrenaline pumping, sweat prickling, heart playing against his ribs like a goddamn xylophone.

Shaw needed to get in and out of here quickly. Instead of heading for the theater, Shaw padded up the stairs toward the balcony. He ignored the arches leading out onto the balcony proper and walked toward a velvet rope and a sign that said Staff Only. He stepped over the rope and pushed through a pair of curtains.

With each step, his sense of certainty grew. He had been wrong about the dress in Mark Sevcik’s closet. To be fair, North had been wrong too. They had both assumed that the dress—like the wizard robe or the Cardinals jerseys—represented another of Mark’s passing interests that he had abandoned. They had both assumed that Mark’s jumps in personality were prompted by a kind of amateurish sampling; drag, Shaw had guessed, had been just one more passing fancy for Mark.

Behind the curtains, Shaw paused at a door marked No Exit and, below that, Control Booth No Patrons. He tested the handle, and it turned smoothly, and Shaw stepped into a sparse, uncarpeted room. Incandescent bulbs flitted to life when Shaw tapped the switch, revealing the complicated machinery that controlled light and sound in the theater: panels of switches and sliders and even two followspots that bracketed the central controls.

Shaw stepped carefully over thick-gauge cables taped to the floor, and as he moved, his thoughts kept moving too. What if both of those assumptions had been wrong? What if Mark hadn’t been jumping from interest to interest because he was trying to find his passion? What if he was jumping from interest to interest like someone pulling on mask after mask—like a series of disguises? The real Mark Sevcik, the one who spilled barbeque sauce on his Hog Hollow Hocks t-shirt, that man was buried under all the masks, and he was only allowed out on those secretive weekly trips to eat pulled pork in the suburbs. The rest of the time, Mark Sevcik was trying to be someone else. Someone cooler. Someone more interesting. Someone who fit in. It was just one manifestation, Shaw thought, of the classic insecurity that so many gay men exhibited. Hiding in plain sight.